First, yes, commits is a terrible metric, because it lacks both the nuance of the size of commits and the substance of the commits. Also different projects have

First, yes, commits is a terrible metric, because it lacks both the nuance of the size of commits and the substance of the commits. Also different projects have different norms around commits. Some people commit each step along a process, some force-push updates to their branches so a given improvement sits in a single commit. There's no good direct comparison between work across projects. That being said, don't feel like "rather marginal" commits is unhelpful. Support, docs, and tweaks are woefully undervalued parts of public projects, and you don't have to be building core features to be a big part of adding to the long-term success of a project. Don't sell yourself short.